In which my parents-in-law move house...

It's been a hectic couple of weeks as my parents-in-law moved from the house they've lived in for the past 50 years into what the Dutch call an "aanleun woning". An aanleun woning is a flat or a house that's connected to a medical care center and is an ideal place for elderly folks who want to keep their independence and still have medical care at hand. We're all pretty happy about them getting this place as my father-in-law had been in the hospital for more than two months and it took quite a lot of energy and time added to which it was getting quite depressing for him.

Mom-in-law hasn't been well either. But she's really quite stubborn and refuses to admit that she can't do everything on her own any longer. So, this is an ideal place for both of them as they get regular visits from medical personnel.

The move to the new house meant getting rid of a lot of stuff from the old house, and looking for a place to store things that used to be in the old house. Happily, we'd managed to empty our attic of a lot of extra stuff, so there was room for the things that did need to be stored. I do question the wisdom of storing a cradle that's almost 50 years old and is quite ricketty, but I think I'll let hubby have his turn at sentimentalism. After all, it was his cradle.

In the meantime, we salvaged a number of doors that would do very well for our storage area in the attic. Finally, the dream of having the stored stuff neatly kept out of sight will come to pass.

Moving house does bring to light how we tend to hoard and keep things that we really end up not using at all. Mom-in-law is from the world war II generation where hoarding became quite a habit during a time of scarcity. If there was ever the epitome of the thrifty soul, it's my mom-in-law. In all the years that I've lived here, I've never once seen her wear clothes newly bought from the shops. She barely ever spends money on clothing and shoes, and if she does need them, she'll head for the nearest thrift or charity shop where she always manages to get shoes that have never been worn for almost nothing. Every winter, she unravels her old sweaters, washes the wool, and knits it back into either a new sweater or the same one it was before she unravelled it. If the wool gets too thin, she visits the thrift shop, yet again, purchases a good-as-new sweater, unravels it, washes the wool and knits a new sweater.

She's often told me how she hasn't bought herself new clothes for years because her closets are stuffed full with clothing.

All these conversations have often made me feel guilty in the past, and I finally decided to try and not let the kids wear anything obviously new when they went to visit Grandma. Whenever I bought new shoes for the boys or bought a new dress or a new blouse and she noticed it, I'd feel obliged to explain my purchases away. She became the standard of thriftiness that I had to live up to. Not easy if you'll consider that I used to buy myself a new dress every week, and once blew 2000 bucks on new shoes. All that non-thriftiness would come back to bite me each time mom-in-law noticed something new.

"Oh, you have a new dress." or "Do you have a new coat?" or "Are those new shoes?"

It's been quite a long time though since she's made observations like that, but on Sunday, we went off to visit the in-laws. Samuel was wearing sturdy leather shoes. Shoes she'd forgotten were first worn by Joel Jan, because she started making a comment that went like this:

"Oh, what beautiful shoes. My, my, my, your Daddy must work so hard for you to have such beautiful new shoes."

Before she got to the part where she says how expensive baby shoes are I said:

"Oh, but those were Joel's shoes."

To which, she said:

"oh, oh...my, well. They look good as new."

Picture the bling smile on my face.

I got one up on mom-in-law and she had to say:

"Well, that's the nice thing about having two kids. You can always pass on stuff like shoes to the next one."

Aren't I lucky I've got two boys? Just think of all the commentating I'd have gotten if I had a girl with all the frillies and doodies. I would have made a great girl mommy...my little girl would have been doffed out everytime.

Grandma would have been one huge trembling blob of worry about the way daughter-in-law spends money like water. If she was tech savvy enough to read this blog, I'm sure she'd heave a sigh of relief....